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DELIVERED 



JULY 4th, 1817. 




BY HOOPER CUMMTNG, A. M 

Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church in Albany. 



ALBANY : 
PRINTED BY I. W. CLARK. 




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V. 




Albany, July 23, mi. 



Enclosing a copy of a resolution unanimously passed by 

R^ city, requesting me to furnish a copy of the Oration pro- 

l^th of July inst, for publication. The Committee most earnest- 
Ri individual wishes with those of the Common Council in this re- 
j^lnd they are persuaded that the community will be alike gratified with the pub- 
lication. 

I am, Rev. Sir, 

with the highest respect, 
Your most obedient 
Humble Servant, 
(^By order) ' J. STILWELL, 

Chairman of the Committee. 



City of Albany. 

In Common Council, Jult 14, 1817. 
■ Resolved, Tiiat the thanks of the Corporation be presented to the Rev. Hooper 
CuMMiNG, for'his eloquent and patriotic Oration delivered on the 4th of July inst and 
that he berequested to furnish this Board with a copy for publication, and that Messrs. 
Siilrvell and Mayell be a Committee to present this Resolution. 
Ex:tract from the Minutes, 

GEORGE MERCHANT, Clerk. 



Albany, July 2m, IZl-. 
Mr. John Stiuvell, Chairman, S(C. 

' I am highly hotioured by the communication from the Common Council, 
which you were s^o polite as to present me on AYednesday last. In compliance with 
their request, I herewith transmit to you a copy of the Oration which I delivered on 

the 4th inst. 

With much respect. Sir, 

I am your obedient servant, 

' JL* HOOPER CUMM1N(j 



.A-3 



TO THE 
CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF ALBANY, 

AND TO THE 
MEMBERS COMPOSING THE MILITARY ASSOCIATION 

THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS, 

WRITTEN AND DELIVERED AT THEIR REQUEST, 

IS DEDICATED, 

WITH THE SINCEREST RESPECT, BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



N. B. The Author's absence from town^ since the 1th toitil the 
22d inst. is the reason why the following pages have not been pre- 
sented to the publick at an earlier date. 

Albany^ July 2Z, 1817. 



ORATION. 



T. 



IME, inflexible to his purposes, persevering in his onwanl, 
steady course, has fulfilled the high and varied trusts commiKed by 
the Eternal, during another twelve-month, and has once more per- 
mitted us, in unison with our brethren of this great and rising Re- 
publick, to pour forth a nation's gratitude, and reciprocate the most 
patriotick and joyous feelings. Empires have been subverfed, (lie 
thrones of mighty potentates have tottered to their base, and revo- 
lutions the most sudden, the most devastating, have swept away 
the fabrick of ages in the eastern hemisphere, while Americans, 
with but one comparatively short and trifling interruption, have 
unmolestedly pursued their career of national happiness and gran- 
deur. Forty-one times has earth performed her annual circuit 
around the glorious orb of day, since the dauntless representatives 
of an oppressed but high minded people, having exhausted the 
gentle spirit of entreaty, and become persuaded of the utter use- 
lessness of all further attempts at conciliation, dared to raise the 
arm of independence. In the name of the God of justice, the 
Arbiter of the destinies of men, they made a solemn appeal to all 
ihat was magnanimous in the heart thai panted after Ireedom. 
The country, bleeding at every pore, but not disheartened, recipro- 
cated the lofty sentiment, and confiding in the equity of their cause, 
looked to heaven, and then aimed a death- blow at the head of ty- 
ranny. 'Twas one of the sublimest spectacles earth ever witnes- 
sed. Foiled in many an attack, but not despairing, they resumed 
the contest, and when the laurels of victory seemed to thicken on 
the brow of the opponent, the view served but to stimulate to 
fresh exertions, to more signal devotedness, to more desperate 



struggles. Already bad the finger of Providence pointed to him 
who blended in his character the prudent forecast of a Fabius 
with the fearless intrepidity of Leonidas — to him who united the 
practical wisdom of Miltiades and Xenophon with the death- 
contemning courage of Hannibal and Themistocle? — to him who 
possessed alike the self devotedness of Regulus and the cool cal- 
culating spirit of Epaminondas, the moderation of Aristides, and 
the valour of Rome's second founder — to him who added the in- 
tegrity of Cato to the bravery of Julius Caesar, as the main in- 
strument of effecting the hazardous euterprize. The blood of 
heroes had already flowed at Lexington and on the heights of 
Bunker ; already did the streaming tears of the widow, and the 
piteous moans of the orphan, gloomy presages of future evils yet 
more worthy of deprecation, give point to the arguments of the 
desponding — but those who affixed their signature to the magnani- 
mous avowal which this day commemorates, and WASHING- 
TON, the commander of their choice, remained undaunted. The 
retreat from Dorchester, the overthrow at Brooklyn, the rapid 
flight through Jersey, filled with pa nick the bosoms of the timid, 
and lighted up the beams of exultation in the hearts of tyranny's 
abettors — but freemen despaired not. December's festive night re- 
turned. 'Twas the death-warrant of oppressors' hirelings — the 
hour of gladness to the defenders of human rights. The small but 
intrepid band pursued their victory, and on the plains of Prince- 
ton where MERCER bled, freedom raised high that standard which 
proved the rallying point of her hitherto almost expiring hopes. 
I glory in the fact, that the state which gave me birth was the scene 
of such exalted triumphs. Mercer lives, and shall live ever in 
the hearts of freemen. 

" On the whirlwind of the war 
High he rode in vengeance dire ; 
To his friends a leading star, 
To his foes consuming fire. 

Then the mighty poured their breath, 
Slaughter feasted on the brave j 
'Twas the carnival of death, 
'Twas the vintage of the grave. 



J 



Charged with valiant Mercer's doom, 
Lighining wing'd a cruel ball, 
'Twas the herald of the tomb. 
And the hero felt the call : 
Felt, and rais'd his arm on high ; 
Victory well the signal knew, 
Darted from his awful eye 
And oppression's force o'erthrew. 
But the horrours of that fight 
Were the weeping muse to tell, 
O 'twould cleave the womb of night, 
And awake the dead that fell. 

Gash'd with honourable scars 
Low in glory's lap they lie, 
'Tho' they fell, they fell like stars 
Streaming splendour through the sky. 
JVassau^s tones triumphant pour 
Piercing through the hero's grave, 
Life's tumultuous battle oe'r, 
O how srveetly sleep the brave ! 
From the dust their laurels bloom 
High they shoot and flourish free, 
Glory's temple is the tomb 
Death is immortality." 

Alternate elevations and depressions followed, 'till from the 
blood-stained fields of Saratoga, Monmouth, Germantorvn, and Eu- 
taw, Liberty rose with renewed strength and animation, and point- 
ing with prophetick accuracy to Yorktorvn, led her favoured sons to 
the consummation of all their hopes. There, the minions of des- 
potism cowered, and Thirteen United States were freed from bond- 
age. The same benignant Providence which had hitherto guided 
the footsteps and crowned with success the efforts of the pilgrims' 
sous, consolidated their happy union. Rival interests yielded to 
the general good, and the Federal Constitution, that matchless pro- 
duction of human wisdom, recognizing the sovereignty of the in- 
dividual states, yet blending them iotp ooe, controlling within 
proper limits, yet extending sufiBcient power to the higher depart- 
ments of the government, was adopted with an unanimity of spirit, 
which the most sanguine calculations could hardly have anticipat- 
ed. Its practicability has been tested. And during the collisions 
of party, the interference of variant interests, and the (rials of a 
recent war, it has been deraonstrated, that a people who will be 
free, shall continue so. 



8 

Fellow-Citizens, when we turn our attention to other parts 
of the globe, and take but a cursory view of events which have 
there transpired since we became a sovereign and independent na- 
tion, how can we repress the feelings of gratitude the most fervent 
to God our Deliverer and Protector. 

Blessed in his government, founded as it is on the principle 
of equal righis, the citizen of America is alike free from the toils 
of war, the oppression of the despot, and the rage of anarchy. Un- 
injured by lawless power, be peacefully pursues the objects of ho- 
nest industry and enterprise, and with delight surveys the happi- 
ness of his country, unmoved, save by the distresses of his fellow- 
men in other lands. But his motives for gratitude are infinitely 
multiplied, while he contemplates the cheerless, gloomy, distressing 
state of myriads upon myriads, in the most extensive and popu- 
lous districts of the world. 

Africa is overrun by cruelty and oppression, ignorance, the 
grossest impurities of worship, and perpetual feuds of savage and 
opposing banditti. To these dire calamities, the barbarity of ci- 
vilized man adds others the most tremendous. 'Tis true indeed* 
that of late years the accursed slave-trade has been shorn of its 
strength by the Christian efiForts of a Wilberforce and his coadju- 
tors. But yet in instances alas ! too numerous, profiting by the 
advantages which culture has bestowed, the heart of covetousness 
plots th« scheme, its arm tears from their kindred and their home, 
many a hapless victim of toil, and penury, and despair. On the 
banks of the Gambia and the Niger, they once breathed the air of 
freedom. The morning sun rose but to cheer them, and sat with- 
out a cloud. But 'twas the dream of youth. The white man 
came. Avarice barred his heart against the suggestions of 
humanity. He came the prowling Panther : He came the fell 
destroyer of repose. Snatched in a moment from all that earth 
holds dear, they are immured in a floating dungeon, borne across 
the Atlantic wave, consigned to the tyranny of a pitiless task-mas- 
ter, doomed to wear out life in cruel bondage, and under the lash, 
like a very brute, obliged to labour without respite for the gratifi- 
cation of the lusts of a pampered glutton. The morning sun no 
longer cheers them It rises but to tell them that another day of 
oppression has commenced. The evening is no longer decked 



with smiles. Chill dismay broods o'er their heart. Their eyes 
are sunken. They remember the land of their fathers— the liber- 
ty they once enjoyed— the delights of their early years — the be- 
loved companions from whom they ^vere torn away, now perhaps 
like themselves doomed to perpetual servitude — Tears of anguish 
roll down their furrowed cheeks, and their wearied limbs, no longer 
able to support their burden, sink to the earth. O was there ever 
human being more pitiable, more degraded ! Africa ! thy wrongs, 
thy varied, congregated miseries, demand and receive compassion's 
tear. The artist's pencil is inadequate to the portraiture; the 
imagination of the most vivid poet unequal to half the extent of 
thy wretchedness. Humanity recoils from such a scene, and hopes 
in Asia to find a joyous contrast. But the prospect brightens lit- 
tle on the view. The parent and nurse of arts and arms is bound 
in fetters. The vigour of her sons has been transplanted into 
other breasts, and the edifices of her power lie crumbled in ihe 
dust. The firmness of her warriors, the dignity of her patriots, 
are sunk in apathy and immersed deep in the gloom of ignorance. 
The sleep of death has seized her governments, which are hasten- 
ing to that grave where lies buried all the splendour of time. Her 
Darii and her Xerxes are gone, and the same torpid, gloomy pan- 
tomime is still acting which for centuries has been performed, save 
where the hard-hearteilness of other nations on the adjoining con- 
tinent, has disturbed the repose of unoffending millions. 

If we turn to Europe, what do we behold ? The commotions 
of jealousy, the rage of ambition, and the convulsions of rival 
power, have, 'tis true, for the present, yielded to a peace for alon'g 
time fervently desired, and become, in fact, indispensable. But 
exhausted treasuries, butchered millions, overgrown, enormous, ter- 
ribly-destructive vices, ungratified resentments still burning and 
inextinguishable, a spirit of general disquietude and restlessness, 
are the consequences of past conflicts, and the precursors of mise- 
ries yet to be repeated. 

Spain is degraded by despotism, enervated by luxury, and op- 
pressed by superstition. She is a nation of slaves, destitute of 
that vigour which once made nations tremble, and grasped the 
empire of Eurone, Her conflict v.jth Napoleon tiartook, indeed, 

B 



10 

more orman]iaess, and fortitude, and devoted patriotism, than her 
history, siace Peruvian gold corrupted her, led us to anticipate. 
But that conflict was iull of woe. Tens of thousands were hur- 
ried to tlie eternal world, While contending merely for the choice 
of masters. The nation preferred one despot to another, perhaps 
less ambitious, but not less sanguinary ; less inclined to wield the 
sceptre of universal domination, but at home far more ferocious. 
They threw ofif the chains of au usurper, but fastened around their 
necks the yoke of a persecuting Bigot. If, however, they are dis- 
posed to hug <heir miseries— if they prefer to the rights of con- 
science the accursed Inquisition, that scourge of humanity and 
virtue, that darling child of Satan — if they would rather crouch to 
the imbecile, besotted, priest-ridden Ferdinand, than delegate the 
powers of government to rulers who shall be amenable for their 
conduct to the people from Avhom they derive authority, we can 
only drop over them Compassion's tear, and be doubly grateful lor 
our exalted privileges. 

France, after a revolution, whose commencement promised 
nrach to the cause of equal rights, but whose progress was marked 
b}^ an atrocity of crime, a thirst of blood, a depravity of princi- 
ple, unparalleled ia the history of civilized ages, bowed to the 
sceptre of the Imperial Corsican, whose insatiable ambition and 
pride of conquest desolated her fertile provinces, and cut down 
the flower of her hopes; and having at length deserted him in his 
misfortunes, has again submitted to tyranny, again embraced the 
fetters which enslave her, and clasped the rod which enforces her 
sui^jection. A legitimate king has been imposed upon her — Icgiti' 
viair, while, and not a moment longer than the nation thinks pro- 
per to deem him so ; — but the accession of the Eighteenth Bour- 
bon, has been the instrument of stifling freedom of inquiry, and 
prostrating liberty of conscience before the fooleries, and blasphe- 
mips, an.'l oppression of the Man of Sin. . Hapless nation ! her cup 
of misery is not yet full I her calamities seem to darken in futu- 
rity ! 

Italy was once " the mistress of the world, the seat of em- 
pires, the nurse of heroes, the delight of gods." She once ex- 
hibited taste, knowledge, freedom and valour, but is now depraved, 



11 

haughty, servile, extravagant, revengeful. Her sons scarcely boast 
of that tire of genius and liberty which once burned in the bo- 
soms of their ancestors, but of which now, not even embers nor 
smoke remain. The descendants of those heroes who blew the 
clarion of independence, saw their eagle proudly triumph on the 
turrets of their foes, and shook the universe by their deeds of 
valour, are doomed to servitude, and the voice of liberty only 
echoes from distant regions to remind them of their chains. " The 
toil of fate, the work of ages, the Roman empire fell,'' and with it, 
expired all the sentiments of freedom in Italian breasts. Rlemeo- 
tos of ancient greatness every where remind the languid traveller, 
that he treads on ground once consecrated to liberty and science — 
that there Philosophy unfolded her truths — that there wrote the 
Venusian satyrist — that there sung the Maotuan bard — that there 
pleaded the immortal orator of Rome. There once fought her 
patriots — there bled her warriors for the blessings of independence. 
But how striking is the contrast she now presents ! Ruins, devas- 
tation, meanness, servitude and ignorance have usurped the seats 
of grandeur, magnanimity, power and knowledge. Italians have 
lost every spark of Fabian and Decian worth, and are miserable 
as their ancestors were happy. 

Greece is debased. Her ancient sons of freedom,^ who made the 
field of Mars to tremble beneath their valour — the temple of 
Apollo and the groves of science to j'litter with the coruscations 
of their genius — are gone; and with them has forever vanished the 
glory of their country. Rome produced warriours never surpassed 
in prowess — Greece men of genius aad eloquence who never yet 
were equalled. But the change iq both is infinitely deplorable. 
The inhabitants of Greece seem only to exist that they may be des- 
pised for their ignorance and stupidity. They scarcely know 
that ever there was a Thales or a Solon, a Chilo or a Pittacus, ;i 
Periander, a Bias, or a Cleobulus. Every principle of action is 
torpid — all their souls are enervated. Athens, where Oemosthanes 
thundered, and Socrates soared the towering edifice of wisdom, 
lies buried in ruins. Sparta, Thebes, Argos, Cerinth, immor- 
talized in history, are scarcely to he found for the rubbish of time. 



J 2 

Lover of literature and science! canst tliou behold the desolation, 
and not shed tears for the fall of greatness ? 

Switzerland, but why should I attempt the tale? 

" O'er thy mountains sunk in blood, 
Were the waves of ruin liurled, 
Like the waters of a flood, 
Rolling round a buried world. 

On St. Gothard's hoary top, 
Once the ark of Freedom sat, 
But that ark by tempests tost 
foundered in the swallowing wares." 

The ravages of tyrants on the plains of Brunnen, of Morgar- 
then, where Shawembourg's treachery made the victors slaves, 
and in the lower valley of Underwalden — the miseries of Berne 
and Stantz, of Glarus and Schaffhausen, furnish a tragical disclo- 
sure sufficient to wring " tears from marble eyes." 

" Fierce amid the loud alarms 
Shouting in ihe foremost fray. 
Children raised their little arms, 
In their country's evil day. 

On their country's dying bed 
Wives and husbands poured their breath, 
Many s youth and maiden bled, 
Married at thine altar, Death ! 

Virtue, valour, naught availed 
With so merciless a foe ; 
When the nerves of heroes failed 
Cowards then could strike a blow. 

Cold and keen the assassin's blade 
Smote the father to the ground, 
Through the infants breast conveyed 
To the mothers' heart a wound." 

Thus expired Switzerland. " The miracles her champions 
wrought," came too late. Foreign influence had already sapped 
the foundations of her freedom. A solemn lesson, teaching us, 
Americans, to scowl at the dawnings of disunion, and, perpetually 
alert, to guard our institutions against the very semblance of inva- 
sion's first unhallowed touch. 



13 

Austria, Germany, Prussia, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, 
they are now emancipated. But since this beloved land first 
raised high the paean of thanksgiving, oppression's ruthless grasp 
has often torn away their fairest comforts ; and even now, compar- 
ed with us, their blessings are but woes. 

Poland, thou hast been dismembered a second time. Thy go- 
vernment annihilated, thy resources emptied into the coffers of 
thy desolators. Well art thou called Poland, a territory jit for 
hunting. Thy liberties have been hunted down on (hine exten- 
sive, beauteous plains. Ignorance broods o'er thy people — Des- 
potism crushes thee beneath its iron rod. 

" Oh bloodiest picture in the book of time, 
Sarmaiia fell unwept without a crime ; 
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 
Strength in her arm, nor mercy in her woe ; 
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, 
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career : 
Hope for a season bade the world farewell, 
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell." 

Should we extend our views to Russia and Britain, to Sweden 
and Norvvay, while the heart of Christian benevolence would re- 
joice at the conquests which the Bible has achieved, and is still 
achieving over superstition and bigotry, ignorance and crime, 
there would be much left deeply to deplore. There, the efforts 
of honest industry, in a thousand and ten thousand cases, are palsi. 
ed i)y the extravagance, (he dissipated habils, the avarice, and 
selfishness of the government. The lusts of a licentious nobility 
are fed by the hard earnings of the subjects, who toil almc^st in 
vain from month to month, from year to year, and wear out life in 
all the sad variety of vassalage. 

But, Americans, from scenes so gloomy and disgusting, let us fix 
our delighted view on this favoured soil, the asylum of oppressed 
humanity, the genial clime of liberty, the " world's last hope.'' 
Here no despot rules. Here all power emanates from the people, 
the rightful sovereign, and yet 'tis delegated to officers whom they 
appoint, in a manner, which, with equal vigilance and cerfaiut3% 
preserves the republick from a monarch's grasp, the pride and poi- 



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